reflections of a pragmatic optimist, lover of freedom

Category: Election 2014

I must admit, nearly two weeks later I’m still in a bit of disbelief over the election results. After last time around, I hadn’t dared hope for much. I’ve grown cautious. And in the long view, I still see this as hope of a temporary slowdown at best, in the seemingly inexorable growth of the state and corresponding diminishment of individual agency. Nonetheless, the evident possibility that things can turn around, at least in the short term, has been a welcome ray of sunshine. I do feel the burden of gloom slightly lifted … for the moment, at least.

I say this with full awareness that there are no guarantees about what’s to come next. We have merely the potential to address problems in better ways now — ways that are consistent with the foundational values of the freedom-loving culture I grew up in and have always felt a grateful devotion to. We have put people in office who campaigned on a return to Constitutional principles, and it’s going to take vigilance and holding their proverbial feet to the fire to see that those notoriously fragile campaign-trail promises are kept.

The battle ahead will not be pretty, nor easily won. We are dealing with people who feel completely justified in deceiving the public when necessary to achieve their ends. The stakes are high, and nothing less than this precious free Civilization of ours hangs in the balance. But the alternative — not to put everything we have into preserving and defending what matters most — is unthinkable.

As much of a letdown in the wake of seeming certainty as 2012 was, and as much as I’ve started to believe that only the opening of a new frontier can hope to save this frontier culture of ours in the long-run, I don’t lack motivation to get to the polls and cast my one vote today. For those of similar persuasion who do need a little pep talk, however, I believe I can provide.

I have lived among the Left for many years. I have experienced firsthand what they say about us when they are certain they can’t possibly be among anyone but their own kind. And I wish I could say that the news was good — that it portended anything but a continuation of irreconcilable differences and division that will continue to pain this country without an end in sight.

What I can tell you with clarity is that we are a joke and an embarrassment to them, you and I — with our ridiculous flag-waving patriotism, our silly belief in the American Way worthy of non-stop Colbert Report caricature. Our devotion to an old, outdated Constitution that doesn’t even guarantee the “right” to free healthcare. Our quaint ideas about “freedom” having anything to do with being “free” to be taxed less, or not required by the state to do things that are clearly for our own good. America is Changing, becoming a Progressive social democracy where you will be governed by people smarter and better than you, and you’d better get over it. Or not. Who cares what you think, really. Just so you shut up and stop dragging the rest of the country down into the dark ages, forcing your enlightened betters to consider desperate measures such as seeking political asylum in Canada.

You’re a joke. But you’re also an enigma in some sense — a creature whose ideas can’t make any kind of sense or be logically understood, so the only possible explanation is a knuckle-dragging, hayseed cartoon caricature.

Whatever. We’d be moving Forward a lot faster, and “catching up” with the rest of the world, if not for your fake “news” outlets whose broadcast licenses should have been revoked a long time ago. Maybe if you stay in your trailer park or wherever it is that you live and keep your backward, reactionary ideas to yourself this time, things will go right, and your countrymen won’t have to be quite so embarrassed when they apologize to their enlightened European friends about this laughing stock of a country.

Do America and the world a favor. Stay home today. ‘K?

About Me

An ex-Californian, I seek escape from culturally and economically stifling Progressivism and European-style “social democracy” to live and celebrate the classically American Way of Life — one founded in the optimism, initiative, entrepreneurship, boldness, achievement, cultural confidence, and love of Liberty that I grew up knowing and fell in love with.